UNC Campus Connections

Complete coverage of North Carolina Campus Connections.

Carolina will be the best four years of your life

You aren’t just there to learn from books and professors, but to start to learn what it’s like to make your own decisions, good and bad. Going to school at Carolina provides you with an amazing opportunity to meet others who share your beliefs, introduce you to something you never thought about, or just will become your best friends for the rest of your life. (Tar Heel Blog)

UNC student with muscular dystrophy defies the odds

Demi Eckhoff suffers from muscular dystrophy, a group of diseases that cause progressive weakness and loss of muscle mass. But that didn't stop Eckhoff. She took a leap by moving from her home state Alabama to Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She came to the state in pursuit of a master's degree that many told her was impossible for a girl with her condition. (ABC 11)

Q&A with UNC professor, energy grant recipient Pam Jagger

Pam Jagger is a UNC professor of public policy and will be the director and principal investigator of a research program for energy poverty in Southern Africa. She's been studying energy poverty issues for five years and received a $4.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation to conduct research and start a program to increase access to modern energy in Southern Africa. (Daily Tar Heel)

Joseph DeSimone, the Chancellor’s Eminent Professor of Chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences at UNC-Chapel Hill and the William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering at North Carolina State University, has been named the recipient of the 22nd Heinz Award in the Technology, the Economy and Employment category. (UNC.edu)

From Tokyo to Chapel Hill: UNC’s First International Student

The first international student to study at UNC was Shinzaburo Mogi, from Tokyo, Japan, who was enrolled during the 1893-1894 school year. Mogi's family in Japan was involved in the production of soy sauce, beginning the company that would later become Kikkoman Corporation. Mogi himself made several attempts to manufacture soy sauce in the United States. (UNC.edu)

Meet UNC grad, Chapel Hill restaurant entrepreneur Al Bowers

I was born in Richmond, Virginia, but I grew up in Greensboro, North Carolina. We moved to Greensboro when I was 3. When somebody asks where I’m from, I say Greensboro. My freshman year of college, I moved to Chapel Hill. I went to school here, and met my wife here, and we decided that we wanted to raise our children here. (Chapelboro.com)

Carolina For The Kids funds grants for improvements at UNC Children's Hospital

Carolina for the Kids, a UNC organization dedicated to supporting the families and children of Chapel Hill, raised money to give two grants to UNC Children’s Hospital last month. The grants will fund two projects improving treatment for children admitted into the hospital. One project looks to better the hospital’s ability to measure the height of children with physical disabilities. (Daily Tar Heel)

Retired Green Beret shot down by Taliban now studying at UNC to be a surgeon

This month marks the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. After that tragic day, one local man joined the military, and 16 years later, Karl Holt is helping others — even as he still has a long way to go to help himself. “There’s a lot of people who can have courage on the battlefield,” Holt said. “It’s a whole other level of courage to deal with yourself.” (WNCN)

UNC student launches his own clothing line

UNC sophomore Jalon Cooper launched VZN Clothing in early August. Many students have started wearing VZN Clothing on campus and participating in photoshoots to help spread the brand’s name. Members of the UNC basketball team including Seventh Woods, Brandon Robinson and Jalek Felton have also helped Cooper’s marketing by sporting the shirts. (Daily Tar Heel)

Two researchers from the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health have been awarded a grant for more than $6 million to accelerate the development of a promising new drug in the fight against deadly coronaviruses. Ralph S. Baric, PhD, professor, and Timothy Sheahan, PhD, research assistant professor, are co-principal investigators for the grant. (UNC.edu)

UNC alumna in the US Virgin Islands gathering medical donations after Hurricane Irma

UNC alumna Jennie Rabinowitz reached out to ABC11 after escaping storm devastation in the US Virgin Islands. She's fundraising for medical supplies and urging medical professionals to help after Hurricane Irma destroyed the only hospital on the island of St. Thomas. Rabinowitz said she escaped the devastation there by boat and is now in Puerto Rico. (ABC 11)

UNC professor Edward Samulski wins polymer chemistry award

Edward T. Samulski, Carolina chemistry professor emeritus and former chair of the applied physical sciences department, has been awarded the Herman F. Mark Polymer Chemistry award for 2017. The Herman F. Mark Award is one of the highest honors bestowed by the ACS Division of Polymer Chemistry and recognizes outstanding research and leadership in polymer science. (UNC.edu)

Almanac: Charles Kuralt

A page from our "Sunday Morning" Almanac: Sept. 10, 1934 ... the day Charles Kuralt was born in Wilmington, NC. An award-winning young newspaper reporter, Kuralt rose rapidly to become a CBS News correspondent at just 23 years of age. In the fall of 1967, Kuralt began his longest journey yet -- his years of travel "On the Road" looking for little stories everyone else had missed. (CBS News)

UNC grad picks up an early Emmy Award – his sixth

Scott Jacobson, a 1995 graduate of the N.C. School of Science and Math and a 1999 graduate of UNC, picked up his sixth Emmy Award on Saturday night at the 2017 Creative Emmy Awards Show in Los Angeles. Jacobson won as a writer and co-executive producer on the Fox animated series “Bob’s Burgers,” which won for Outstanding Animated Series. (Raleigh News & Observer)

For a Chapel Hill Native, Being a Tar Heel is Timeless

On the first day of classes, many of the 30,000 students stand in a line that winds from the Old Well to The Carolina Inn, waiting for a cool sip that, according to legend, guarantees a semester of straight A’s. They won’t realize until much later that the lessons learned in Chapel Hill were much larger than what they’d gleaned from their course loads. (Our State Magazine)